Hidden quality longs and forensic accounting shorts
Kernow: Contrarian Alpha from UK Equities
By HAMLIN LOVELL FIRST PUBLISHED IN MAY 2021
ernow co-founder, Alyx Wood, who has a family home in Cornwall, named the firm Kernow, meaning Cornwall in the old Celtic Cornish language. He has a track record of generating substantial alpha from contrarian views on UK equities, and Kernow is
forging a distinctive corporate culture, which includes becoming a B Corp to formalize its own commitment to corporate social responsibility as well as having a growing presence on social media such as LinkedIn and Instagram.
Since the company was founded in a coffee shop in 2019, Kernow’s long/short UK equity strategy has made 41.2% between November 2019 and April 2021, a period over which unloved and neglected UK equities delivered negative returns of 1.2% for the FTSE All Share. Kernow has also maintained much lower downside volatility than the market. Longer term, Wood has a strong record of outperformance in UK equity small cap – where his portfolio annualized at 16.5% gross between 2014 and 2018, and greatly outperformed peers. He has been personally investing – including shorting – since the age of 15.
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